As seen on

The Decline in Australia Property Value

At this point the euro zone crisis is a well-bludgeoned, departed equine that doesn’t deserve a lot of ink. However, the knock-on effects just keep on coming and one of them is beginning to shake the very foundations of Australia… literally.

The euro zone did not so much fall into a new abyss, it simply failed to climb out of the last financial chasm.

After the crisis of 2008-2009, most economies steadied themselves for a moment. A few just kept spiraling down, including Greece, Italy, Portugal, etc. These countries have been in recession for years, trying to unwind the go-go days of credit-driven hyper-consumption that included buying new homes and gadgets.

While the drop in property prices in the PIIGS countries is well documented, what about all the other stuff they are buying less of? This is where the supply chain backs up… and overflows…

The euro zone is the largest single export market for China. As the euro zone slowed down, it bought less and less “stuff” from the cheap manufacturing hub of the world. The Chinese, ever ready to put on a brave face, kept manufacturing, even though their sales were slowing down. You can only keep this up for so long.

Apparently, “so long” came and went some time last spring. China is now firmly in a manufacturing recession and is posting industrial numbers last seen in the dark days of 2009.

So what do the Chinese do? They finally slow down their production, which means they stop buying as much of the raw materials they once needed to make all that stuff.

Australia, of course, who weathered the recent downturn quite nicely due to its abundant natural resources and China’s seemingly inexhaustible demand. Now that China’s appetite has lessened, the Aussies are beginning to feel the pinch.

What Shoots to the Moon… Must Come Down Again

While the rest of the world experienced a property boom, Australia experienced a property moon shot, making the gains in other countries look like a speed bump. The ever-increasing profits showered on the small country as they sold their goods overseas fueled this boom.

When the rest of the world went bust, the Aussies just “dug a little deeper” and kept on moving. The country seemed all but untouchable, until now.

We are now getting more and more reports from our Australian subscribers about the lack of demand for housing, particularly along the gold coast. Properties used to sell quickly and for premiums. Now they languish on the market with little interest.

While moderately priced homes seem to be OK for the moment, the higher priced habitats are showing signs of strain.

For years we’ve warned our friends down under to sell their Australia property before the market implodes.

You see, the problem with real estate is that, unlike stocks, there is no readily available, liquid market that can be accessed on any given day. Instead, real estate requires a buyer to make a sizeable investment. If there’s any whiff of risk, a seller can find himself staring at a “For Sale” sign in the yard for months, or even years, as prices walk steadily lower.

Now, we are reaffirming our call on Aussies to protect themselves!

If you are of a mind to move, now is the time to take the plunge… while the market is still functioning.

As the global economic crisis deepens, real estate prices in Australia will most likely find themselves sinking ever lower, just as they did in the U.S. and other countries.

“Market bubbles are often a mass delusion, where investors wrongly assume that prices move in only one direction – UP! And nowhere is this delusion clearer than in real estate,” says economist… Read More>>

Rodney Johnson works closely with Harry Dent to study how people spend their money as they go through predictable stages of life, how that spending drives our economy and how you can use this information to invest successfully in any market. Rodney began his career in financial services on Wall Street in the 1980s with Thomson McKinnon and then Prudential Securities. He started working on projects with Harry in the mid-1990s. He’s a regular guest on several radio programs such as America’s Wealth Management, Savvy Investor Radio, and has been featured on CNBC, Fox News and Fox Business’s “America’s Nightly Scorecard, where he discusses economic trends ranging from the price of oil to the direction of the U.S. economy. He holds degrees from Georgetown University and Southern Methodist University.